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‘Downton Abbey’s Mrs Patmore: ‘I’ve turned down MasterChef’

By Sam Rigby

Screen Shot 2014-09-15 at 11.53.38Downton Abbey

star Lesley Nicol, who plays Mrs Patmore on the ITV period drama, has turned down offers to appear on Celebrity MasterChef and Strictly Come Dancing.

The actress admitted that a lot of people think she is a good cook in real life, adding that she is not at the standard to compete on the BBC cooking series.

“I’m not a cook in real life,” she said. “I’ve been asked to do MasterChef, but you have to be a certain standard before you even start, and I’m not of that standard! So it would be humiliating.

“They’ve asked me to do Strictly as well, but they’d have me being pushed through a cannon, so best not!” she told our friends at Digital Spy.

Nicol has played head cook Mrs Patmore in all four series of Downton Abbey to date, and will reprise the role in the upcoming fifth series.

Downton Abbey‘s fifth series will premiere on Sunday (September 21) at 9pm on ITV. Watch a trailer for the new series here.

> ‘Downton Abbey’: Maggie Smith to get ‘grittier plot’ in series 5